playhtml Star

library-agnostic (html, react), fast, and expressive

playhtml is an open-source library for designing communal web experiences by enhancing web elements with real-time, collaborative interactivity.

Why does the internet feel lonely when we increasingly spend much of our time on it? I think it's because most of the internet is a solitary experience, by design: personal algorithmic feeds, content-focused websites, no indicator of who else is here with us right now.

We need new imaginations and speculations for what the web could be and who we could be on it.

playhtml is designed as infrastructure for designing communal internet experiences that make the web feel alive. Beyond individual experiences, and even the collaborative ones we are familiar with (shared cursors, canvases, etc.), there's so many more shapes for us to interact with each other online. I hope this makes it possible for anyone to create their own expressive social media "app" but via the open web rather than a closed platform.

Most of the elements on this page are live examples! Trying clicking, dragging, and playing around with them. If anyone else is on the site, you'll see their cursors and how they're playing with the elements too.

games & examples

1. fridge poetry
2. tug of war (by Chamod)
3. a horse race (by Annie Oh)
4. a starry dance floor (by Jeanette)
5. every minute of the day colored by someone at that minute
6. a website with every color added by someone
7. a website with a single color set by someone
8. a cursor party
9. a one word story game
10. candle factory
11. or view the community example gallery

I'd love for you to try this out and make your websites collaboratively interactive and feel alive like a lot of physical spaces do. If you do make something, message me or join the community on discord!

the lore

This project started out as a way to explore how I could make collective interactive design more accessible to people who just know basic HTML and CSS and create weird, personal internet sites (see html.energy). In (we)bsite, we tried out a lot of new interaction mechanisms for collective space-making but it involved syncing state, creating a database to store history, and handling all the nitty gritty of manipulating HTML elements.

I hope playhtml helps play a role in making the web a space for everyone to shape, change, and maintain.

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